


Prayer for the Dying

by RoseThornhill



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt Dana Scully, Random & Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 06:16:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14129868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseThornhill/pseuds/RoseThornhill
Summary: A brief, angsty piece where Scully gets shot.





	Prayer for the Dying

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 1995, at the tender age of 14. Other than a couple spelling errors, I have not edited this at all. It's not great... but it's not bad.

Shots rang out through the sky.  Mulder dropped to the

ground quickly.  The shooting stopped after a few minutes.  A

car door slammed, an engine roared, tires squealed, and then

silence.

 

Mulder stood slowly, making sure he was unharmed.

"Hodge, you okay?"

 

"Yeah, I'm okay," Neil Hodge, the agent on assignment

with Mulder and Scully, called out.

 

"Scully, you okay?"  Mulder called to his partner.  No

answer.  "Scully!"  Silence.  "SCULLY!"  Mulder shouted with

urgency, afraid of what might have happened.  He raced to

where he last saw her.

 

Thirty yards away, he found her in a pool of blood.

Kneeling beside her, he saw a bullet had grazed her side,

taking a bite out of her waist, but not inward enough to hit

any vital organs.  He hoped.  Her head was lying next to a

sharp, blood-spattered rock.

   

 "Oh shit," he murmured.

 

Hodge came running up.  "Radio for help," Mulder

demanded, not bothering to look up at Hodge.

 

"I- I can't," he stammered.  "Remember?  All means of

communication are smashed."

     

"Dammit," Mulder swore.  "Bring one of the cars around.

We have to get her to a hospital.  She's losing too much

blood."

     

Agent Hodge ran off, Mulder tightened Scully's trenchcoat

around her and used his own to apply pressure to her bullet

wound.

     

Hodge brought the car around to where Mulder stood with

Scully in his arms.  Gently laying her on the back seat,

Mulder got in on the other side and sat with her, cradling

her in his arms.

     

Hodge pulled away, going at least 80 MPH.  The four hour

drive back to civilization had commenced.

     

They had been driving less than 20 minutes when it began

to rain sheets.

     

"Damn," Hodge muttered, releasing some pressure from the

gas pedal.

     

"What the hell are you doing?" Mulder demanded as the

car slowed down.

   

 "If we go too fast, we'll slide off the road!" Hodge

explained.  "And we can't help Scully if we're both dead."

     

Mulder sighed and leaned back against the seat.  How

many times had he heard _that_  before?  He closed his eyes

and thought back to a few days ago.  This case had been hell

from the start.

     

First, word came down that Mulder and Scully would be

joined by Agent Hodge for a stakeout.  That had been bad

enough, but then Hodge slipped up, and the three of them

ended up being held hostage for three days in some abandoned

cabin in the Nevada desert.  They hadn't suffered any serious

injuries, just a few cuts and bruises, but all lines of

communication, including their cell phones, had been cut off.

Mulder had eventually managed to break out of his restraints

and free the others.  In their efforts to escape, their

captors had come back from wherever they had been and

caught them in that final shoot-out before fleeing.

     

Mulder looked at Scully's limp form in his arms.  The

bleeding had stopped, or at least lessened dramatically,

which was a good sign.

     

He was just drifting off when a shifting in his arms

brought Mulder back from the brink of sleep.

     

"Mulder."

     

"I'm here, Scully.  It's okay.  Ssh.  You're gonna be

okay."

     

"It hurts--," she moaned, sounding like a lost child.

     

"Don't talk.  Just relax.  Everything is going to be

okay."  He glance up momentarily to see if they were any

closer to the hospital, but he couldn't tell.  By the time he

looked back down to Scully, she had blacked out again.  It's

for the best, Mulder tried to assure himself, and he, too,

fell back into sleep.

     

He awakened to find someone taking Scully from his arms.

     

"No! Don't take her!"  He cried, still groggy from

sleep, tightening his arms around Scully.

     

"Hey fella, take it easy," a medical attendant said to

Mulder.  Realizing what was happening, he reluctantly

complied.

     

Hours later, Scully was sill unconscious, but the

doctors were allowing visitors for brief periods of time.

   

Upon entering the room, Mulder noticed Hodge kneeling at

her bedside, hands clasped under his chin, mumbling a prayer.

He noticed the strange look on Mulder's face, and then rose

to his feet.

     

"I need to be alone with my partner.  I don't know what

you were saying down there, but --,"

     

"It's a prayer for Scully's health.  You should try it

some time," Hodge told him coolly.

     

Mulder, tired and irritable, picked the fight just to

let out his aggression.  "She doesn't believe in that crap,"

Mulder spat out.  "She doesn't believe in miracles."

     

"She's Catholic, isn't she?"  Hodge said, speaking of

the cross necklace she wore.  Without another word, Hodge

pushed past Mulder into the hallway and left.

     

Mulder went to her bedside and silently clutched her

hand.  He didn't know how long he had been sitting there, but

the doctor came in eventually, forcing Mulder to go home,

promising to call if there was any change.

     

At home, Mulder was restless and felt useless.  He

considered going for a jog, but he couldn't risk the

possibility of missing a call from the hospital.

     

He tried T.V., but that didn't help either.  Finally, he

just decided to go to bed, try to relax.  After lying there

for five minutes, he felt more useless than ever.  Mulder sat

up with a frustrated scream.  He was going mad.  He had no

one to talk to.  Margaret and Melissa Scully were in the

middle of the ocean, on a cruise to somewhere.

     

A thought occurred to him, and although he felt foolish

doing so, it would hopefully ease the feeling of uselessness

and claustrophobia that was seeping into him.  He crawled out

of bed, and got down on his knees.  It was time to say a

prayer for the dying.


End file.
